The art of blowing bubbles for fun and entertainment dates back to, a least, the 1600's, where paintings from that era depict Flemish children blowing bubbles through clay pipes. During the 18th and 19th centuries, mothers in many corners of the globe gave their children leftover washing soap to blow bubbles. In the early 1900's, street vendors in the USA began to sell bubbles as a toy.
During the WW II, a US-based chemical company which manufactured and sold cleaning supplies created what would later become the best selling “toy” item in the world by manufacturing a liquid specifically for making bubbles and placing it in bottles for sale. By the late 1940's bottles of bubble solution revolutionized the toy world and companies began to compete to produce better bubble solutions. During the 1960s, bubbles, along with beads and rainbows, became symbols of peace which further popularized bubbles among adults. From the 1960's until the present day, there has been a continuing trend with many international companies competing to produce not only better bubble solutions, but also better means of allowing children and adults to make bubbles. Today, bubble solution is the #1 selling “toy” in the world, with over 200 million bottles each year.
There have been many bubble-producing toys manufactured over the past half century. The first improvement from the old bubble pipes were ring devices made usually from plastic where the user holds one end and dips the other into a bubble solution to create a film of bubble solution across the ring. The user would then wave the ring through the air, whereby the ring would move through the air faster than the film of bubble solution, resulting in one or more bubbles being “pinched off” as the ring moved through the air. From the basic rings came trigger-activated bubble-producing toys where the user would dig the bubble-emitting end of the device in bubble solution, then aim it into the air and activate some sort of blower by pulling on the trigger.
The next improvement was to experiment with the actual film-producing method. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,191 to DeMars teaches a bubble-producing toy which relies on an applicator bar which moves vertically across the bubble-emitting aperture, thereby leaving a film of bubble solution across the aperture through which air is forced by a fan, also activated by a trigger. U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,890 to DeMars and U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,469 to Lei takes the basic idea from the '191 patent but has the bubble-producing mechanism be a wiper bar which applies a film of bubble solution to the aperture much like an automobile windshield wiper works on a windshield. A similar idea is taught by published U.S. patent application No. 20020061697 which teaches a handheld bubble making device includes a reservoir of bubble making solution that is drawn by a motorized pumping assembly and distributed over a dispensing surface. U.S. patent application No. 20040142626 to Choi describes a bubble-making toy which uses a propeller to cause liquid from an outlet port to spread across the space formed in a ring downstream of the propeller, which assists in spreading liquid across the space defined by the circumferential ring onto which liquid flows from the outlet port.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,416,377 to Bart combines a bubble-blowing device having a rotor which works in conjunction with an electric fan or blower, and a multi-colored lens assembly circumferentially surrounding a light source. U.S. patent application No. 20030116224 to Crawford teaches a vertically-aimed bubble-making machine with a membrane-forming system, a blowing fan, which is intermittently operated. U.S. patent application No. 20040142626 to Choi concerns an invention which makes bubbles via a propeller to cause liquid from an outlet port to spread across the space formed in a ring downstream of the propeller. U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,819 to LaFata teaches a target bubble generation and target shooting system which involves an accordion-like pump actuated by both hands, pushing air through a film-forming elliptical ring structure which is lifted out of the bubble solution and exposed to the stream of air generated by the user pushing in on either side of the invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,565, also to Bart, concerns a bubble-blowing toy gun which blows compressed air through an aperture over which a film forms.
Thus, toy bubble-producing inventions tend to fall into two categories: those in which a ring is dipped or otherwise coated with bubble solution and then exposed to a stream of air, and those in which some sort of wire travels across the aperture, thereby coating the aperture with bubble solution prior to having air blown through the aperture. Both methods effectively generate bubbles, but both have their drawbacks. Without a regular, efficient, user-controlled method of reestablishing the film of bubble solution on the aperture, the “ring” devices tend to lose the film of bubble solution quickly or rely on expensive and/or complicated mechanisms by which the ring is re-inserted into bubble solution or repeatedly covered by bubble solution. While a wire which establishes a film of bubble-producing solution every time it is activated by a user pressing a trigger will effectively prepare the toy for producing bubbles, the wire is prone to breaking or bending, thereby terminating or at least decreasing its efficiency. Furthermore, wires do not lend themselves to projecting any appearance of being part of the toy. For example, there are numerous bubble producing toy animals which have open mouths through which the bubbles exit the machine. A wire or wiper blade across an open hole detracts from the animal-like appearance of a toy. Indeed, the cuteness of a fanciful puppy or kitten bubble blowing device can be severely undercut by the presence of a gun-like structure pointing out of the animal's mouth. Additionally, neither approach causes a film to be caused in the toy's “resting position”; a user has to actively press the trigger to cause a film of bubble solution to be created across the aperture. Finally, neither approach effectively seals the aperture so that a film can be formed immediately, in both cases the forming of a film requires substantial movement of one or more parts of the invention.
As a result, there has been a long-felt need for a toy bubble blowing device which forms a film of bubble solution across the aperture in the toy's resting position, which quickly and effectively forms such a film in a regular and consistent manner, where the act of blowing bubbles can be accomplished by pressing a trigger which both actives the source of air and opens the aperture, leaving a film of bubble solution in place, doing so in a manner which involves a minimal number of moving, delicate parts. There has also been a need for a bubble-producing toy where the film-creating mechanism adds to the appearance of the toy rather than detracting from the manufacturer's attempt to create either a fanciful or realistic appearing animal-based toy.
It was in reaction to these needs that the current invention was created. The invention is particularly directed toward a bubble-producing toy which can be held in a user's hand, and, when activated by the user pulling on a trigger, will produce a stream of bubbles via forced air funneling through an aperture in the invention's “mouth”, over which a tongue-shaped flat disk creates a film of bubble solution through which air is forced to create bubbles. Attached to the flat disk is a funnel/catchment basin which recycles bubble solution which did not leave the invention as a bubble.